Automattic CEO Toni Schneider @ Doodle (Part 1)
August 28, 2009
Don’t know what Wordpress is? Well, right now you’re looking at an installation of this really great blog software. Personally I enjoy using Wordpress since I guess 2003 when I started my first blog. And when Amazee decided to switch from Drupal (as a blogging software) to another solution, it was very clear to me that we’ll go for Wordpress. As I haven’t had a look at a Wordpress admin screen for quite a while – the last time was maybe in 2005 – I was really overwhelmed by all the tweaking they did in the meantime, while still keeping the core clean, fast and simple.
That’s also one important thing Toni Schneider – Swiss rooted very congenial CEO of Automattic, the company behind Wordpress.com – emphasized in his speech yesterday: Keeping the core of the software slender and provide additional functionalities as plugins. However, if some features really prove to be used by a majority of users, they can also be included in the main package after a while.
But it was not only about the geeky tech stuff. Toni also told us a lot about life in the Silicon Valley 20 years back from now, about his experiences with either very small or totally bloated companies and about how open source business models work – of course he used Wordpress as an example.
So what’s important to know: Wordpress is not only a very popular open source blogging software that everyone can install and use for free (Wordpress.org) but also a world’s top 20 website hosting more than eight million (!) blogs (Wordpress.com). While their basic service is free, users can pay for a variety of upgrades starting with an ad free blog, an own domain and going on with highly customized solutions for big customers who generate high traffic loads as for example CNN. Though not everyone liked their business model at first – some people couldn’t understand how you can give away the software you’re earning your money with for free – it proved top be a great success over the years. Open source as its best!
Unfortunately I had to leave because my duty was to hunt down an evil spammer who misused our platform, so I missed the second part of Toni’s speech about being a VC. More about this part of the speech as well as some pics in a soon to come blog post by Dania – stay tuned! And thanks to doodle, ch/open and Technopark Zurich for organizing and enabling this event!
3 Responses to “Automattic CEO Toni Schneider @ Doodle (Part 1)”
Don’t miss Corsin’s post about the event: http://cocaman.ch/wp/2009/08/toni-schneider-automattic-ceo-true-ventures/
A good read!
Thanks for the link Lucas
I’ll add your post to mine. Like yours as well. To bad you missed the second part.
You’re welcome. And thanks for the mention on your blog as well!
(And of course can keep our users stress free …)
Hope to find a good way to prevent future spamming attempts via Amazee so I won’t have to miss interesting speeches anymore